


Don't Worry

by Mercy_Run



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Sick Fic, Unhappy Ending, hints of fontcest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-31 00:49:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12120939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercy_Run/pseuds/Mercy_Run
Summary: Sans had known that eventually, in some way…the resets would catch up to him.





	Don't Worry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [undertailsoulsex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/undertailsoulsex/gifts).



> A Christmas gift from last year for undertailsoulsex !
> 
> NSFW Blog: mercy-run.tumblr.com

It had started out as something small somewhere around the two hundredth reset. Sans had thought nothing of it at the time. Snowdin was a cold region and despite being a skeleton monster, he was still vulnerable to sickness. A simple cough wasn’t something to worry about. Fifty resets later, the skeleton had developed a steady cough and what felt like a fever. It was troublesome when Sans still had his part to play. Papyrus eventually became increasingly more worried about his state than spending time to catch a human, which wasn’t part of the script at all.

It had stayed that way for another hundred resets, so he thought that was that.

Sans had been terribly mistaken…

He had woken up as always in his bed in Snowdin and that was where he himself had broken the well-rehearsed dance.

Lurching over the edge of his mattress, Sans gagged and his magic rebelled; but instead of the waste magic being a sicker shade of cyan… His sockets widened as he raised his trembling hands to find them coated with something that looked like tar. The darkest black the monster had ever seen aside from the Void itself.

“SANS? ARE YOU ALREADY AWAKE?”

Papyrus’ voice had him attempting to sit up and slap his mask back on, but the room spun; causing his small frame to collapse right where he was in bed. He was burning up from the inside out and he wheezed weakly, the thick black liquid oozing down his chin.

The door opened and Sans couldn’t even manage a smile for his younger brother.

“SANS?!”

Large hands were on his face and chest, cool even through the thickness of Papyrus’ red gloves.

“BROTHER! CAN YOU SPEAK?” He couldn’t. “TELL ME HOW TO HELP YOU!”

His eye-lights flickered dimly in his sockets, guttering out at times in an attempt to focus on Papyrus. Sans had always known deep down that the resets had to be taking some sort of toll on him. He just hadn’t known it would be like this…

A whine emitted low in his ribcage as he was lifted up and surrounded by the familiar embrace of his sibling. He could faintly hear Papyrus begging for him to say something, anything. But it was like his magic was rebelling against any attempts Sans made. Vaguely, he felt his baby brother wiping the thick, black sludge away from his mouth.

“DO NOT WORRY, D-DEAR BROTHER! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, W-WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU!”

The tremor in his sibling’s voice had him wanting to comfort Papyrus. But he couldn’t speak. He could barely move. His magic was doing everything it could to hold his body together and that was it.

Papyrus did not go out to patrol for humans. Though the human child never came out of the Ruins on the first day, it still was different from all the other runs. Sans’ awareness sometimes dimmed so much that he was certain he was dusting, but the world would always return through his feverish haze.

He knew time was passing, if only for the differences each time he surfaced from what he thought was death.

One such time had him gasping and gagging, the dark tar-like substance leaking from his mouth and sockets, his magic attempted to fight off his illness. He faintly could hear Alphys’ stutter and Papyrus’ frantic words before he fell unconscious once more.

The next time, Sans was a bit more aware. The nearby hum of his sibling’s soul immediately chased away any panic but it was followed by confusion.

He was naked…

If the small monster had been any healthier, Sans would have tried to crack a joke but all he could manage was a vague groan of question. Cold phalanges brushed against his burning face and Sans realized with a pang of shock that Papyrus wasn’t wearing his gloves. In fact, whatever his younger brother was wearing was soft; definitely not his battle body. The mattress they were laying on was more comfortable than his… So they had to be in Papyrus’ race car bed. Cracking open his sockets sapped nearly all of the strength from him, quivering eye-lights trailing up to find the out-of-focus sight of Papyrus’ face.

“Sans…”

His brother’s voice was so, so soft…

“I do not know if you can still hear me… The doctor told me you were…that you are Falling Down.” His brother’s voice was choked and full of restrained emotion, resignation in what Sans could make out of his expression. How long had he been like this to crush Papyrus’ cheerful disposition? Surely the kid would’ve been here by now?

“I wish I would have known your hope was so fragile. I keep asking myself if maybe this is somehow…my fault.”

Sans managed a vague noise of disapproval and his younger sibling laughed. But it wasn’t his normal laughter. It was quiet and broken.

“I knew you would think that. At least I know you can hear me in some way…”

The digits brushing against his face stilled, “I never thought you would Fall Down, Sans. You always seemed so…invincible. So strong. I thought I would always have you… Despite knowing that you were older and that this had to happen someday.”

Oh Papyrus…

Sans wanted to reassure his sibling. To hold him and tell him not to worry. But he could barely keep his sockets open. His body felt so light.

If he fell asleep this time, he would never wake back up.

“Brother… Can you hear me? I want to tell you something, while you are still…”

Sans forced his sockets open halfway, not realizing they were attempting to close. It took all he had to manage a single nod of his skull. A relieved sigh gusted against his cheek.

“I thought we would have all the time in the world for this. That one day, you would work up the courage to tell me. But now…” His younger sibling sighed, “Sans… I know how you feel about me. I have known for a very long time that you have loved me more than brothers are supposed to love each other.”

Sans’ breath hitched but he otherwise remained silent. He had no choice but to do so, too weak to do anything else but hang on to Papyrus’ words.

“And… I feel the same way.”

…What?

Surely he had misheard. Delirium from his sickness…but Papyrus was still talking, his large hands caressing his ribs over the blanket covering them both.

“I have always loved you, brother. In every sense of the word. You have always been there for me. Always sacrificing yourself and your needs for my sake. But I noticed! I noticed everything!” Papyrus murmured, voice low and desperate, “I have noticed how tired you have been. I call you lazy, but I know something else has made you this way. I noticed how many jobs you worked. I noticed how you wake up screaming sometimes. I noticed how you look at me when you think I am not looking! I love you, Sans!”

This…this had to be his dying soul grasping onto threads of hope. But Papyrus was here. Warm, solid and strong.

“Please… I want to hear it from you. If only just this once,” Papyrus pleaded brokenly.

His soul stuttered, pain spiking in the deepest reaches of the culmination of his entire being. If only he had known this sooner. Perhaps he could’ve held on through more resets if Sans had known Papyrus returned what he had thought were unrequited feelings. Sans’ hope definitely would’ve lasted longer… Maybe the kid would have eventually stopped resetting. If only he could hang on just one more time. Just once more…

“p…pap…”

The tar-like liquid immediately tried to drown his words, leaking from between his teeth as he forced himself to do one last thing for his precious sibling. Sans had been doing it all this time. For what felt like eternity. He wouldn’t fail Papyrus, especially with this.

“l-love…you.”

Though his normally calm voice was merely a quiet, choked whimper; Sans managed to pour as much feeling into his confession as possible. He had so many failures. So many times that he had stood back and let the human do what they wanted because it had been so hard to care when nothing mattered.

Nothing had mattered. Except Papyrus.

Sans’ sockets slid shut and he felt thick droplets of magic splashing on his face, sliding down his features to join the black substance as his younger brother’s frame shook with heart-wrenching sobs.

“Please…”

Papyrus sounded like a child again, when he stood smaller than Sans’ own short stature. Terrified and lost. He faintly reached out and his small hand was clutched at desperately; his brother pressing the knuckles to his teeth in a skeleton kiss.

“Sans, please. Don’t leave me!”

He was loosing feeling entirely, the bones his brother was clinging to beginning to crumble. He was chipping…

“You promised we would see the stars together!”

Cyan magic mixed with the tar slipped down his cheeks. Sans wanted to stay. He wanted to keep that promise. Wanted…more time with the only person he had truly loved and never had stopped caring about… Despite everything.

The small skeleton focused on that. He gathered all of his feelings. His endless love, adoration and compassion for his brother. In the same instant his soul cracked down the middle, Sans sent all of it to the warmth of his sibling’s being.

Time froze for one precious second before Sans dissolved into sparkling dust in Papyrus’ embrace.

The last thing he heard was his baby brother’s startled laughter…  
______________________________________________________________

The knife slipped from the human’s grip.

“Hello, small human.”

Not loud. Not annoying. Expression pained but pulled up into a smile anyway. The tall skeleton was hugging a jar filled with what coated the child’s clothing desperately.

“Are you lost…?”  
_______________________________________________________________


End file.
